Tuesday, March 03, 2015, 12:48 p.m.

Guard: Pistorius told me 'everything is fine'

PRETORIA, South Africa — Oscar Pistorius told a concerned security guard on the phone that everything was "fine" after neighbors reported gunshots coming from the athlete's house the night he shot dead his girlfriend, according to testimony in the South African murder trial Friday.

The security guard, Pieter Baba, testified that Pistorius phoned him back moments after the initial brief conversation, but then started crying, didn't say anything and the line went dead. It was minutes after the double-amputee Olympian fatally shot Reeva Steenkamp, for which Pistorius is now on trial for murder.

"Not everything was in order as Mr. Pistorius was telling me," Baba recalled saying to a fellow guard as they were outside the runner's villa in the predawn hours of Valentine's Day last year.

Baba's testimony followed a damaging description of Pistorius' character by a former girlfriend.